October 25 was moving day for Kirk and Michelle Kennedy and their two daughters.

The only problem: they didn’t want to move.  Hurricane Wilma forced them to when it flattened their home in Pahokee, Florida.

The young family, which is expecting another baby, has squeezed into a tiny trailer parked on the family’s 1,900-acre farm for four months. 

Kirk farms with his father, Billy, on the same land that was first farmed by Kirk’s great grandfather.
 
“When I look around I can’t help but wonder if this farm has ever been in worse shape,” said Billy. “I’m just glad my dad and granddad aren’t around to see it like this.”

Wilma hovered over the Kennedy farm for five hours, and in the blink of an eye, she tore down things the family had spent four generations building.

Early estimates are that the storm destroyed nearly 25 percent of the family’s sugar crop and damaged barns and equipment.

Billy and Kirk expect this to be the worst year in the history of the farm, and they can’t understand why Florida and Louisiana sugar farmers were left out of the hurricane disaster bill passed by Congress in December.

“Not a cent,” explained a bewildered Billy, who has taken out personal loans to fund the farm and repair the home where he and his wife raised Kirk.  “People aren’t looking for a handout, just a hand up to get our community back on its feet.”

The story sounds all too familiar to Irving Bordreaux, a sugar loan officer with Mid South Bank in Louisiana.

“Several of the Louisiana cane farmers I work with are getting out of the business,” he said.  “It breaks your heart when you see these guys selling farms that have been in their families for generations.”

But Bordreaux understands the decision.

“They were struggling even before Katrina and Rita because of low prices, poor yields, previous hurricanes, and rising fuel costs,” he said.  “Farmers are naturally optimistic, but you can only be optimistic for so long when you’re facing these kinds of rebuilding costs.”
Bordreaux says most of the Louisianans choosing to get out of the business are young farmers, many of whom will carry around farming debts for 10-15 years.

“They’re too proud to file bankruptcy,” he said.

Hurricanes Katrina and Rita slammed Louisiana’s sugarcane crop. Rita alone left some 30,000 acres of sugarcane—an area nearly the size of Washington, DC—under saltwater for nearly two weeks.  And amazingly, Hurricane Wilma appears to have done even more damage to the Florida crop.

In a recent letter to Congress, Teddy Eastin, a senior vice president with Regions Bank, wrote:  “Without [disaster assistance], many of us will be unable to provide the loans that would cash-flow [sugar farmers’] operations until next year’s harvest and will, instead, be forced to make decisions on residual balances that will have devastating consequences on our farmers, their families and the local industries that rely on their business.”

Florida and Louisiana sugar farmers--along with sugarbeet farmers from other parts of the country who experienced weather-related losses--are hoping for disaster assistance immediately, but they are also looking for a little legislative stability in the long run.

“There’s not much point in working to save your farm if there’s no market to come back to,” Billy said. 

He contends that eliminating no-cost U.S. sugar policy in the next Farm Bill or passing other CAFTA-like trade deals would be a nail in the coffin for many hurricane-struck farmers.

“We’re not at the point of no return yet,” said Billy, “but we’re getting awful close.”